The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Let’s pray and we can talk about all of this while we work,” Kaaren said gently. When their heads were bowed, she began, “Heavenly Father, thou who knows all things, we thank thee for this day and this gathering here in the church thou hast given us. We thank thee that we can come before thee and that thou listens to our voices. Thank thee, Father, that thou dost love us and did send thy Son Jesus to die on the cross that we might be yours.”

  A sniff came from one of those present.

  She asked for help in the problems they were experiencing and for wisdom to know what was right and what to do next. “And heavenly Father, we bring Anner and Hildegunn before thee now. I have not lost an arm, but we have all felt loss of something, so we have an idea how he feels, but, God, he is so angry and bitter. Please help him to see thy mercy and to know that life can be good again. Father, bring healing to each of us who have hurts in our hearts, and we give thee all the thanks and praise. To God be the glory and to Jesus His Son, amen.”

  At the “amens” from around the group, they raised their heads and many of them dabbed their eyes with their handkerchiefs.

  “Ah, Kaaren, you pray so good. Would that I had words like that,” Brynja said. “So often I only cry and plead, ‘God help me.’ ” She looked up from staring at her hands. “Life is so hard at times.”

  The stark words lay on the table like a viper coiled to strike.

  Ingeborg nodded. She too was one of those with hurt in her heart. She looked at Agnes and could see suffering mirrored in her eyes. One of these days, she promised herself, I have to talk to Agnes and find out what’s eating her.

  By the time they all headed home, they had heard Gould’s letter, his offering assistance of any kind, including investment money to begin the bank. Someone had gone for the newspaper when the train went through, and Kaaren read aloud to them while they stitched and cut. They put Penny in charge of getting information on the homestead belonging to the two girls, and they set a date for the fall harvest celebration to be had in the Johnsons’ newly finished barn.

  “I think you ought to remind Haakan to speak with that young MacCallister,” Agnes said to Ingeborg privately as they were getting into their wagons. “Reverend Solberg and Petar never made that girl shine like the mention of Zeb MacCallister. She was red as a beet every time I looked at her.”

  Ingeborg nodded. “You’re right, of course. But getting information from him is like pulling a hen’s teeth. I know. I’ve tried.”

  “Kinda makes one wonder, then, what’s he hiding?” Agnes laid a hand on Ingeborg’s knee. “And you and me, we got some talking to do too. You know it well as me.” She turned and put a foot up on the wheel spoke, heaving herself up on the seat like it was a chore that took all her strength.

  “You take care of yourself,” Ingeborg called.

  Agnes just waved and slapped the reins. “Hup now.”

  In the Bjorklund wagon, Bridget and Katy helped settle the twins and toddlers in the back, along with themselves, and Kaaren joined Ingeborg on the wagon seat.

  “You all settled back there?” Ingeborg asked over her shoulder. “Now, Andrew, you sit down by Deborah. My land, what a load we got.”

  “Giddup!” Andrew hollered, sitting down at the same moment. Kaaren and Ingeborg shared glances and smiles. It had been a good day.

  Haakan was having as much trouble prying anything out of Zeb MacCallister as Ingeborg had. Sure he talked about the daily farming, shared all the information he had about the homestead that Manda had left behind—but any mention of his home and life before the girls, and he clammed up tighter than a locked chest.

  “If you aren’t happy with my work, just tell me, and I’ll move on,” Zeb said. The shutters had fallen in his eyes only moments earlier.

  “Now, you know that ain’t the case.” Haakan put down the harness he was mending. Zeb was working on another set. “Everything you put your hand to, you do well, and I’ve learned some things from you too.”

  “Thank you.” Zeb pounded another rivet in place, making sure it was smooth on the underside so it wouldn’t wear on the horse’s hide. Rain pounded on the barn roof and ran off the eaves, making the barn a warm, dry haven.

  Haakan waited, hoping the young man would volunteer something on his own. When it didn’t happen, he sighed and picked up the harness again. Talk about a closed mouth—this man had it down to a habit. Finally Haakan asked gently, “Son, does your family know where you’re at?”

  Zeb shook his head and pounded in another rivet.

  Haakan drove an empty wagon to the harvest celebration so he could swing by and pick up Anner and Hildegunn. He’d promised Ingeborg and Kaaren that he would bring them if he had to hog-tie Anner and throw him in the wagon.

  It nearly took just that.

  “Anner, you need to get out and be among us all again.”

  “I’m here, ain’t I?”

  With one sleeve folded to the inside on both his shirt and jacket, the man looked curiously unbalanced, as if the wind could blow him over with one puff. For all the weight he’d lost, that just could happen, especially in a winter blizzard.

  Anner glowered at Haakan. “What makes you think you know what’s best for everyone else?”

  “Everyone voted, and I got elected to drag you here, not because I know what’s best, but because we all miss you.”

  “Ha!”

  Haakan looked over his shoulder at Hildegunn, who sat huddled in the back as if trying to disappear. “You missed the quilting meeting, Mrs. Valders. Ingeborg said it wasn’t the same without you.”

  She didn’t respond but huddled deeper in her black wool coat, a scarf tied over her head and knotted under her chin. Gone was the fine hat and the superior smile. Her eyes appeared dull, as though the light of her soul had gone out, leaving only a shell.

  Haakan tried again to get Anner talking, but every sentence received only a grunt, if that.

  Lord, help, I don’t know what to do or say. He clucked the horses into a trot—anything to make the trip pass more quickly.

  By the end of the day of festivities, Haakan knew one thing for certain. Anner was a mean drunk. And he wasn’t the only one slipping outside and returning to the party in the barn rosier of nose and cheek and louder of voice. A growing number of women were hopping mad and about to do their men serious bodily harm for their despicable behavior.

  The fiddle invited everyone to dance, the food pleaded for those present to lighten the groaning tables, and between the children playing upstairs in the haymow and the grown-ups down below, the barn was blessed in grand style.

  Until one by one the women had spotted a returning spouse or son or brother who couldn’t walk straight.

  “I ain’t putting up with this,” Goodie whispered, her lips tightened into a line. “Olaf don’t usually drink much, but today. . .”

  “They think because this is a party, they can drink as much as they like.” Penny felt like smacking Hjelmer with whatever she could pick up. He wasn’t drunk by any means, but he was flirting with Katy.

  Katy hadn’t sat still for a moment. Every bachelor in the place had lined up to dance with her, as had many of the married men. But anyone could see that she had eyes only for Zeb MacCallister.

  Petar staggered back in the door, and Agnes nearly bit her tongue off when she caught sight of him. Joseph was feeling no pain either, but he was an adult. Her nephew still had some ways to go to become one, and Agnes wasn’t about to allow Petar that kind of freedom.

  “Don’t say anything here,” Ingeborg whispered. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  “If’n I could get hold of that stuff, I’d break every bottle in the country. Why don’t we just march out there right now and pitch it all down the privy!”

  Ingeborg giggled at the picture that leaped into her mind. “Now, wouldn’t that be a sight?”

  “May I have this dance?” Haakan took hold of his wife’s elbow.

  “Later,” Ingeborg promised Agnes as she
whirled away to a romping polka. “Haakan, can’t you do something about the drinking?” she asked later as they sipped apple cider to help cool off.

  He shook his head. “It’s not against the law, you know.”

  A drunken man’s voice yelled words that no woman or anyone else should have to hear. She followed on Haakan’s heels as he parted the crowd, heading for the door. By the time they got outside, Anner had a knife in his good hand and was waving it wildly at another man.

  The things he said made Ingeborg wish she’d stayed inside.

  Spittle ran down his chin, and his long, unkempt hair now hung over his eyes since his hat lay on the ground. “You . . .” He weaved back and forth, the knife flashing in the late afternoon sun.

  “Anner, you’re using God’s name—” Reverend Solberg pushed toward the fracas.

  “There ain’t no God,” Valders shouted. Then lifting his face to the sky, roared, “If you are God, strike me dead right now!”

  Others backed away, a safeguard in case the Almighty did just that and they got struck by accident.

  Haakan and Lars looked at each other, nodded, and together came up behind Anner. One grabbed the hand with the knife and the other grabbed around the man’s waist, hoisting him off his feet. With a quick twist, the knife fell to the ground. Anner let out a bellow that could be heard clear to Grafton.

  “You better take him home,” Reverend Solberg said.

  “You folks go on and have a good time,” Haakan called. “Lars and I will be back soon.”

  “You want me to find his wife?” Lars asked.

  “No, let her stay and enjoy the visit.”

  “She hasn’t talked with a soul,” Ingeborg put in. “I tried to get her to talk with me, but nothing. She reminds me of poor Mrs. Booth when she just walked out into that terrible snowstorm and never returned.” A shiver ran up her back. It didn’t take much to bring on madness out here on the prairie, and Hildegunn had been through a lot. Just like the rest of them, only by a different means.

  But when they got a now-blubbering Anner to the wagon, Hildegunn huddled in the back as if she’d never moved.

  “What will become of them?” Ingeborg asked as the wagon drove away. “Whatever will become of them?”

  Those men sure did know how to kill a party,” Agnes commented the next day after church.

  Ingeborg looked around at the congregation, which that morning consisted mainly of women. “Many of our men seem to have come down with a nasty stomach and head ailment. And it struck so fast too.”

  “I’d strike something too if’n I could.”

  “I think we can.” Penny joined the group. “I say every time we find a bottle of spirits of any kind, we break it.”

  Ingeborg thought a moment. “Wouldn’t go that far, if it were me. Some is needed for medicinal purposes. Does a good job of cleaning out wounds and keeping one from feeling such terrible pain.”

  “I’d just as soon pour it over their heads.”

  “Sort of like the ‘oil of blessing.’ ” Ingeborg grinned at her own joke.

  “Don’t you go takin’ the Word of the Lord in a joke.” Penny sounded so much like the Mrs. Valders of before the accident that the ladies chuckled behind their gloved hands.

  Penny dropped her act. “That wasn’t nice. I’m sorry. Near to broke my heart seeing Mrs. Valders that way yesterday. I’ll take any and all bossing if she just gets back to being herself.”

  “I think she’s scared half to death.” Agnes lowered her voice so it wouldn’t go beyond their small group.

  “Scared? Why? Because her husband is sick?” Penny turned toward her aunt.

  Agnes shook her head. “Just a feeling I have, but it ain’t good.”

  “What can we do?” Kaaren carried Grace on her hip while Lars held Sophie.

  “Break all the bottles and hide the ones for medicine.” Penny’s voice carried beyond the group.

  Hjelmer looked her way and turned back to the group of men. “We’re in for it, fellas. You just better be prepared.”

  “If all those idiots could only hold their liquor. No need to get drunk like that. Nothing wrong with a drink or two. Just don’t go getting pie-eyed.”

  “Or mean.”

  “Or sick.” Joseph had made it to church, but he still showed a bit of green around the edges. “My suspenders, but those cows wanted to be milked early. One bellered in my ear, and I thought my head was about to bust.”

  They cut off their snickering at the looks they received from the womenfolk.

  “I say we declare war.” Penny leaned into the circle. “Starting as soon as we get home. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” The vote was unanimous. There would be no boozing in Blessing.

  “You know,” said Bridget, “people drink a lot in Norway, and no one seems to care.”

  “Really?” Penny raised an eyebrow. “Maybe they just don’t get drunk there.”

  “Oh, they do.”

  “If it were your husband falling down drunk, wouldn’t you care?”

  “Ja, I guess. But Gustaf could hold his liquor, so it never bothered me.” She thought a moment. “Much.”

  “So . . . what were you ladies discussing with all the secretive looks?” Haakan asked on the way home.

  “Breaking bottles of booze.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Our motto is ‘No booze in Blessing.’ ”

  “Oh, land, there’ll be big trouble in Blessing. Mark my words. You know we don’t have many heavy drinkers on a regular basis, only when the men get together in a group.”

  “What about Anner? Are you saying he’s the only one?”

  “No, I mean I don’t know. That’s not something we men talk about much.”

  “We women didn’t either until things got out of hand. Someone could have been killed because of the drinking.”

  “No one wants to admit to things like that.”

  She shook her head. “Thank the good Lord above, it isn’t a problem at our house.”

  “I got a letter from Solveig.” Kaaren brandished the envelope as she came through the door. She shifted Trygve to the other hip and pointed the twins in the direction of the toy box Ingeborg kept just inside the parlor. “You two go on and play nice now.” She set Trygve down on the rug where he immediately went on all fours and followed right after the girls, crawling almost as fast as they walked.

  Bridget stopped stirring the boiler of diapers and pushed the coffeepot to the hotter part of the stove. “Be ready in a minute.” She replaced the lid on the copper boiler and laid the worn stirring stick on top. Then, using her apron as a potholder, she opened the oven and pulled out a pan of cinnamon rolls. “You got here at just the right time.” With the ease born of long practice, she flipped the pan over on a clean dish towel, and the fragrance of cinnamon flavored the room.

  “My, but that looks good.” Kaaren sniffed and exhaled on a sigh.

  “So, now, what does Solveig have to say?” Bridget pulled a corner roll off and slipped it onto a plate. “Perhaps this will give you the strength to read.” Her smile brought an answering one from Kaaren.

  She eyed the steaming roll in front of her but pulled the sheet of paper from the envelope first.

  My dear family,

  How I miss all of you, and thinking of you all together makes me green with jealousy. But we are busy here, and Mother Carlson lets me believe that I am in charge of the household while she manages things behind the scenes. I am just not used to having all these fine things to care for. I am not complaining, mind you.

  I have good news. George and I will be parents in late spring, and our little one seems to want to make his mother sick. Being sick is not the good news. But that brings me to another point. Could you possibly spare Sarah to come visit for a time? Our maid, or cook, or whatever you want to call her, is planning on getting married next month, and if Sarah would like the job, it is hers. She would use this time to get used to the place.

  Kaaren
looked up from her reading. “Ingeborg, you could make a wagon trip with stuffs for the Bonanza farm, the last run for this season. And take Sarah with you.” She waited for Ingeborg to answer.

  “First of all, Sarah, do you want to go? And second, do we have enough produce to take to make it pay the way?”

  The women gathered around the table as Bridget set a plate with a cinnamon roll at each place. After she poured the coffee, she took the last place at the table.

  They all looked to Sarah for an answer.

  Sarah studied the roll in front of her, then the design on the tablecloth, and shifted her fork to the right. When she finally looked up, she only shrugged. “If I got to leave, I guess I got to leave.”

  “But that’s not true. You don’t have to go. It’s just that this could be a good opportunity for you. They will pay you well, and wait until you see that house. Heaven should be so fine.” Ingeborg leaned forward. “Sarah, it is solely up to you.”

  Sarah looked around at each of them. “I would miss you all so. Do they speak Norwegian there?”

  “Well, Solveig does, that’s for sure.” Kaaren folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. “You don’t have to make a decision today, you know.”

  “No, I think maybe it would be best if I go.” Sarah clasped her hands in her lap. “If you think I could manage all that there would be to do.”

  “Between you and Solveig, George Carlson will think he’s been doubly blessed. Besides, in the last letter Solveig said there was a real good-looking foreman on the farm there. Almost as handsome as George. Those were her exact words.”

  Sarah turned a becoming shade of pink. “Will you write, then?”

  “No, we’ll just go on up day after tomorrow.” Ingeborg looked at Kaaren. “Will that give you enough time to get butter churned? We got plenty of eggs, and I have two wheels of cheese near ripe. We’re going to have to build a bigger well house to cure cheese at the rate we are going. Penny can sell about all I give her too.”